I was a fan of Domination (the RPG) for a while. It was published by Starchilde Publications in 1989. Starchilde also made another game I really liked: Justifiers (and I have to say it is definitely in the heritage of our upcoming new game Whole New World.) The system used a percentile ‘attribute’ which made…
Category: Commentary
Humanydyne ReadThru at the RPGPub
I was faintly annoyed that the English translation was never completed and Google Translate really struggled. So…I’m doing a slightly AI assisted read-through of the book. https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/humanydyne-a-rather-mechanistic-readthrough.11211/
Interview on Randomworlds.
Tonight I was interviewed by the Harboiled GMshoe, Dan Davenport https://gmshoe.wordpress.com/2024/09/22/qa-matt-johnston-rise-of-rlyeh/ We talked about the recent release of Rise of R’lyeh and touched on some recent books we have released. It’s a quick read – particularly with a screen reader!
One Page RPG Jam 2024 – Communists in the Funhouse
So, where did this one come from? Communists in the Funhouse is a euphemism used in Denmark to describe a woman who’s at a certain stage of her menstrual cycle. My wife and I thought this was hilariously phrased and as a result, it had to inspire a mini-game. So, if it tickles you, pop…
One Page RPG Jam 2024 – Talking to Dragons – an Earthsea-inspired RPG
So far I’ve posted two entries for the Jam The first is….Talking to Dragons This is the base system for “Tales of Distant Lands” and could be considered a QuickStart so it’s also available on DTRPG. I’ll still be working on the full release of Tales of Distant Lands obviously
Culture….and reimagining Trek
On one of the forums was the question about building Star Trek from scratch. Of course there’s always Frontier. but I#d really like to run a Culture game ? What rules system? I’ll likely hack together something on YZE because that’s a comfortable place for me. And I’m halfway through that. ? What sort of…
Apocalyptic Endgame: The Gloom, a supplement for Twilight 2000
Get it now on DTRPG “Everything looks like a monster in the fog.” – Aki Bahrampour INTRODUCTION: As the last offensive failed, the brass decided to wheel out their last, big weapon. Drawing on decades of research in their secret bioweapons division, they finally unleashed Operation Verdigris in the war-torn fields of the front. No-one…
FASERIP generator
Back when I was running the Watchtower New England game using Marvel Super Heroes’ FASERIP system, I wrote a simple character generator. I found it recently, and thought I’d pop into GitHub in case other folks might find it useful. It generates random characters using the Ultimate Powers rules, which can then be tailored using…
Whither Krull?
In this 1983 science-fantasy movie, the planet Krull is invaded by an extraterrestrial conqueror known as The Beast who moves his space-capable stone dwelling (the Black Fortress) from planet to planet, consuming them. He has wormlike minions who either wear armour (Slayers) or who change shape (changelings). There’s prophecy that says the Beast can be…
YZE Dice Roller – including Step Dice
AJ built this YZE dice roller on the site so we have a super quick way of rolling dice and collecting successes. It’s the only one that works for Step Dice YZE as well as Pool Dice. Click the image and add to your bookmarks!
Games in a Utopia
I guess it depends where you sit. We live in a post-scarcity civilisation (we have the technology), we just don’t live in a post-scarcity society. Scarcity is manufacturered. So are we close to a utopia if we fixed distribution and inequality? Well. Kinda. There would still be people with greed. People who think that the…
Xiongguo (working title) – playtesting begins
#ttrpgDesign #ttrpg #T2K4e #xiongguo? So, we begin the playtest for Xiongguo (working title) next week. ?I’ve added some additional rules which are pilfered from other systems. ?Xiongguo is a simple, fast, low magic, classless sandbox based in the YZE SRD for playing in an Asian period action adventure game. There is absolutely no attempt to…
Fediversed
And now we are on Fediverse/Mastodon.
Watchtower play test reflections
The recent posts about Watchtower were from a one-shot adventure I ran for my son’s gaming group. They’ve been playing (mostly) D&D together regularly for 3-4 years, and it was a good opportunity to test out the rules with a group that had no preconceptions. The players created Talos-class exotics (the middle of the three…
Two Books on sale at DriveThruRPG
In an attempt to calm this raging passion I have for writing, I’ve begun to embark on putting my books on DriveThruRPG – the pre-eminent site for selling RPGs online. Testament and Creed are two books of a trilogy of games. Both are set at the end of the world, in the Jude-Christian sense. The…
T2000: W+9
After the fire raged through, we took the UAZ through a small town land on the outskirts of Warsaw. The bushes and trees and grass were still burning. I saw a dog, it’s back on fire, screaming as it ran down the road. The metal of our vehicles began to heat and I wondered whether…
About Frontier and Representation
When I conceived Frontier it wasn’t the way it is now. There was a little collaboration from others and everyone had their own idea what it would become. For one it was Sci-Fi-Done-Right in the science. For another it was a aliens done right. My vision was essentially the standard picture of the Bridge Crew…
MUTHUR6000 Preview
I’ve created a little python script for working with the Alien RPG map. It just calculates the distance between star systems based on the included Data sheet. See also a Readme in there.
Brett Devereaux on the Siege of Gondor:
It’s pretty interesting reading. Pop along here for the series. My reply? While I enjoyed reading this incredibly nerdy analysis of the battle for Gondor, The author forgets several points. 1. These are orcs. Every prisoner is food. The city of Minas Tirith is therefore a larder even if the inhabitants eat their food stores….
ALIENS RPG by Fria Ligan
We’ve run two sessions of the Aliens RPG for Graham, Jim, Mike and Barry and we’ve had a heap of fun. I’ve run the starter adventure (Cinematic) and we’re just a third of the way through the Chariots of the Gods cinematic too. Then, if there’s still interest I have a campaign adventure planned. But…